MPC and Fabric Software to Release Fabric for RenderMan

MPC and Fabric Software announced that they have collaborated to integrate the Fabric Engine development framework with Pixar Animation Studios’ RenderMan. Initially developed by MPC, Fabric for Pixar’s RenderMan is an extension to Fabric Engine that enables technical artists to use the renderer from within Fabric, either directly from Fabric’s KL language or using the Canvas visual programming system.

“We are thrilled to be able to use Pixar’s RenderMan directly from within Fabric Engine, which is the backbone of our new pipeline,” said MPC global head of visual effects operations Damien Fagnou. “We can now quickly create tools in Fabric that interact with RIS live rendering, giving artists near instantaneous results that allow them to iterate more freely and make better creative decisions. On top of this, the ability to interact with RenderMan directly from Canvas, Fabric’s visual programming system, is opening the door to really interesting workflows that were not possible before.”

Fabric for RenderMan provides full binding to the RenderMan Interface and Ric API (ri.h and Ric.h) giving users native access to these functions and enabling complex yet efficient workflows such as lighting and shader authoring.

“It is fantastic to see customers and vendors working together to release projects like this for RenderMan,” said RenderMan business director Chris Ford. “The availability of free non-commercial licenses of RenderMan and free licenses of Fabric Engine means anyone can get up and running with our technology, and we can’t wait to see what people do with this.”

Fabric for RenderMan will be available to Fabric Engine 2 beta testers later this month and will be demonstrated at SIGGRAPH 2015 at the Fabric Engine user group on Aug. 11.